What are your favorite original Xbox games?

  • 53 results
  • 1
  • 2
Avatar image for deactivated-5ba16609964d9
deactivated-5ba16609964d9

3361

Forum Posts

28

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 20

E3 and subsequent talks of Xbox backwards compatibility gave me that retro itch to dig out my old Xbox and play some old favorites. So I made a list of my favorite Xbox games while intentionally leaving Star Wars: KOTOR and both Halos off the list because everyone thinks those were the only games worth a damn playing on the system. Microsoft's first attempt at a home console gets overshadowed by the Gamecube, PS2, and even the Dreamcast but I think it was neat "little" system that had more to offer than just playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live. So what are your favorite Xbox games?

1. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
2. Ninja Gaiden Black
3. Star Wars: Republic Commando
4. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
5. Panzer Dragoon Orta
6. Jade Empire
7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
8. Project Gotham Racing 2
9. Fable: The Lost Chapters
10. Phantom Dust
11. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
12. Breakdown
Avatar image for passivespiral
PassiveSpiral

997

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Props to having Buffy on the list. Its probably aged terribly, but at the time The Collective did an amazing job making a fun third person action game when it could have easily been licensed trash. Same with Riddick, which is actually probably my personal favorite.

Avatar image for paliv
Paliv

310

Forum Posts

22

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#3  Edited By Paliv

1. Morrowind

2. KOTOR

3. Fable

4. Rallisport Challenge 1 & 2

5. Top Spin

6. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

7. Jet Set Radio Future

8. Mechassault

9. Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

10. Sega GT 2002 (packed in, played it to death and loved the music)

Edit: 11. Otogi

Avatar image for boss_kowbel
Boss_Kowbel

156

Forum Posts

7

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 32

User Lists: 0

No Burnout 3, my dude?

Avatar image for paliv
Paliv

310

Forum Posts

22

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

@boss_kowbel: I had this thought, too. And then making my list it fell down in terms of favorite and thinking of mostly exclusive games. It really is interchangeable with any of my bottom 6.

Avatar image for humanity
Humanity

21858

Forum Posts

5738

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 40

User Lists: 16

That list doesn't have Jet Set Radio Future on it which makes me suspicious!

Avatar image for notnert427
notnert427

2389

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 4

User Lists: 1

Halo: Combat Evolved - Arguably the greatest game ever made. Needs no explanation.

Rainbow Six 3 - Outside of Halo: CE, this is my favorite shooter of all-time. I was 4th in the world at this at one point. Great single player and multiplayer.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - Spies vs. Mercs was the most fun multiplayer has ever been or will be. Single-player was terrific as well.

Burnout 3: Takedown - Probably the best arcade racer there is. I miss this series.

Mercenaries - Calling in airstrikes on North Korea and making humvees drop from the sky was some good, dumb fun.

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge - Air pirates. I rest my case.

Rallisport Challenge 2 - I'm not sure there's been a better rally racing game.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - I could have lumped this in with PT on the list, but both games are great. CT is a better game in a lot of ways, but PT was awesome first.

PGR2 - Cone Challenges were really fun and challenging. Kudos.

Black - Great soundtrack, fun game, cool mechanics.

Avatar image for clagnaught
clagnaught

2520

Forum Posts

413

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 19

  1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Maybe a little cheating, but that's how I first played this game)
  2. Ninja Gaiden
  3. Halo
  4. Max Payne
  5. Burnout 3

Avatar image for capum15
Capum15

6019

Forum Posts

411

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Halo: Combat Evolved, some of the Ghost Recon games (can't think of the specific names right now), Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, and True Crime: Streets of L.A. are the ones I can currently recall.

Man, the Xbox Backwards Compatibility thing announced at E3 was interesting, but then they straight name dropped Crimson Skies which was my non-Halo favorite game on that OG Xbox and that made me super happy.

Avatar image for fredchuckdave
Fredchuckdave

10824

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Oh hey it's a list. Kingdom Under Fire is the best unique to X-Box game/series other than Crimson Skies.

Avatar image for whitegreyblack
whitegreyblack

2414

Forum Posts

14

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is great but very spooky.

Avatar image for zippedbinders
Zippedbinders

1198

Forum Posts

258

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 14

#12  Edited By Zippedbinders

I've really been enjoying Outrun 2. I'm also one of six people who actually like the Conker remake.

I never had an OG Xbox, so I relied on BC to fill that need, but there were a lot of notable gaps which I hope get filled in for the Xbox One BC list.

Avatar image for deactivated-5ba16609964d9
deactivated-5ba16609964d9

3361

Forum Posts

28

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 20

No Burnout 3, my dude?

I also tried to avoid games that were multi-platform but Xbox was my preferred console.

Avatar image for schrodngrsfalco
SchrodngrsFalco

4616

Forum Posts

454

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 7

#14  Edited By SchrodngrsFalco

Crimson Skies and Fusion Frenzy is all I need.

Halo and Burnout Revenge were amazing, too.

Avatar image for fisk0
fisk0

7320

Forum Posts

74197

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 75

#15 fisk0  Moderator

The Project Gotham Racing games are still really cool. I'm a little biased towards PGR2 since it has a track set in my city.

I'm also fond of Metal Wolf Chaos, the Battlestar Galactica space combat sim and the version of GTA III they got with a lot of additional visual effects.

I no longer have access to an Xbox 1, but I still look up the Stockholm level from PGR2 on youtube every now and then because it's a fantastic rendition of what the city looked like around 2001-2002 (including my then favorite video game store TV-Spelsbörsen, which closed down around 2005), and the city has seen a lot of changes since then.

Avatar image for liquiddragon
liquiddragon

4314

Forum Posts

978

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 19

I had my Xbox for a very short time. I regret selling it...I didn't own many games but Ninja Gaiden Black is amazing and Panzar Dragoon Orta was really cool. I wish I spent more time with Otogi and Jet Set Radio Future but of course I had to get rid of them for some stupid reason...forget where I had Burnout 3. Probably PS2 but still my favorite Burnout so shout out to that game.

Avatar image for hippie_genocide
hippie_genocide

2574

Forum Posts

1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

  • Burnout 3: Takedown - Still the GOAT
  • JSRF - It's worth playing for the soundtrack alone. I beat this once a year. Maybe I'm blind to criticism for it, but I think it still hold up well.
  • Links 2004 - This was so much fun to play online. It straddled that fine line between sim and arcade, definitely leaning more towards the former.
  • Ninja Gaiden Black - For me, still holds the crown for character action. Some crazy difficulty spikes, but when you get good at the game it does a great job of making you feel like a total badass.
  • The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction - a fitting title
  • Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike - This was the game that I used to tide me over until I could get a 360. It had really good multiplayer co-op.
  • Stubbs The Zombie - Everything doesn't fall exactly into place and it is rather short, but man it really tries to be something different and goes for it. Sometimes that's enough for me. It also has one of the greatest OST's of all time.
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Simply one of the best action adventure games
  • Street Fighter Anniversary Collection - I was hyped for this. I even bought the 25th anniversary arcade stick that worked with PS2 or Xbox. It had an arrange mode for Street Fighter II where you could pick vanilla, CE, hyper, turbo, or super turbo version of a character. But the real draw was SF III: Third Strike and the ability to play it on Xbox Live. It was my first experience with online fighting games and let's just say I wasn't as good as I thought I was.
  • Splinter Cell (series) - the first one was like a proof of concept, the second had amazing spies vs. mercs multiplayer, and the third had co-op. If Ubisoft does bring this back I hope it's in this style of game and not "mark and execute" BS.
  • Amped 2 - I know a lot of people love the SSX series, but I always liked Amped. Amped 2 was definitely way more grounded than the beautiful cocaine-fueled headtrip that was Amped 3. I appreciated both.
  • Dreamfall: The Longest Journey - I had never heard of TLJ when I played this. This game goes places, man. It was a cool story driven adventure game with 3rd person control set in the near future, with flashback/time travel sequences and a dope robot monkey.
Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6146

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I don't quite get where the idea that Xbox was overshadowed by Dreamcast came from, and it's only overshadowed by Gamecube because Nintendo fans are hard core. Xbox outsold Gamecube (and easily outsold Dreamcast.) Xbox also had the best version of most multi-plats, at least on console.

My favorite Xbox titles were:

KOTOR (I loved two as well but my Xbox died twice playing through it so I never finished.)

Crimson Skies (So glad this is coming via backwards compatibility. I played this the day they turned off the Xbox Live servers. I love this game intensely, both single and multiplayer.)

Max Payne I and II (I know the PC version is better but don't care. These games were AMAZING on the OG Xbox and I devoured both of them.)

Burnout 3 (Among the best arcade racers ever made.)

Fable (Didn't come close to what was promised but what was delivered was still extremely fun.)

Panzer Dragoon Orta (we NEED a Panzer Dragoon collection. And a new game in the series. I have no idea why Sega has ignored this series for a decade.)

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (One of the best looking games of the generation and just overall great.)

These are just the games I played on Xbox. There were a ton of other great multi-plats like Soul Calibur II and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. And there are games I liked but just didn't play that much of like Otogi.

The Xbox was an awesome console. And it was a great time for games.

Avatar image for artisanbreads
ArtisanBreads

9107

Forum Posts

154

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 6

I think a lot of the good ones have been hit.

Whenever I hear people talk about the Xbox I think they underrate how it was the best place to play just about every third party game at the time.

Avatar image for fredchuckdave
Fredchuckdave

10824

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

@bigsocrates: Gamecube has some of the best games of all time. Xbox has like one debatable top 50 game or so; other than multiplatform stuff. And obviously PS2 is top 3 or top 1 consoles ever.

Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6146

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@bigsocrates: Gamecube has some of the best games of all time. Xbox has like one debatable top 50 game or so; other than multiplatform stuff. And obviously PS2 is top 3 or top 1 consoles ever.

Got it, Gamecube it makes a big fuss!

Found the Chibi Robo fan!

Seriously, though, this is all obviously endlessly debatable. I had both systems and I got a lot more use out of my Xbox not just from multi-plats but because I liked a bunch of the exclusives better than the Gamecube exclusives. It totally depends on what type of games you like. Resident Evil 4 is a masterpiece, but Halo is more influential, having redefined first person shooters for years afterwards. You might love Wind Waker but KOTOR also redefined its genre and created the mold that a large percentage of Western RPGs still follow. Xbox also set the standard for console online gaming and started the downloadable game on console idea that has saved many genres.

You, personally, not being super into Halo is very different from Xbox not being very influential.

Avatar image for theht
TheHT

15998

Forum Posts

1562

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 9

  1. Halo
  2. Breakdown
  3. Ninja Gaiden
Avatar image for deactivated-5f39c75856922
deactivated-5f39c75856922

453

Forum Posts

151

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Halo

Jet Set Radio Future

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

Burnout 3

Amped

Avatar image for mozzle
mozzle

394

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Amped 2

Project Gotham Racing 2

Crimson Skies

Avatar image for hans_maulwurf
hans_maulwurf

642

Forum Posts

286

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

#25  Edited By hans_maulwurf

Games I'm still missing from peoples lists here: Urban Chaos: Riot Response, The Warriors

Avatar image for dave_tacitus
Dave_Tacitus

2541

Forum Posts

19

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

Only me and Jeff's wife have any love for Sudeki, it seems? Until I realised that there had been a (pretty decent) PC port, it was one of the few reasons I had to get the OG Xbox out of retirement.

Avatar image for babychoochoo
BabyChooChoo

7106

Forum Posts

2094

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 2

#27  Edited By BabyChooChoo
  • Unreal Championship 1 and especially 2
  • Jet Set Radio Future
  • GunValkyrie
  • Halo 1 and 2
  • KOTOR
  • Ninja Gaiden
  • Panzer Dragoon Orta
  • MechAssualt 1 and 2
  • Chronicles of Riiddick
  • Fable
  • Beyond Good and Evil
  • Battlefront 1 and 2
  • Otogi 1 and 2
  • Blinx (don't judge me, I really liked the first game)
  • Dead or Alive 3
  • ESPN 2K5

The original Xbox had a lot of games I really loved now that I look back on it. GunValkyire, Otogi, and Panzer Dragoon are probably the three I'm itching to replay the most specifically because there really hasn't been anything like them since they were released. The same could be said for JSRF, but words cannot properly describe how much of that game I played back in the day an- ya know what? I wanna replay that now too. I still regularly listen to the music in the game. And even all these years later, it's still one of the most stylish games ever.

Avatar image for deactivated-5aa7cc9892e50
deactivated-5aa7cc9892e50

15

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

To just name a few off the top of my head

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, Oddworld Strangers Wrath, Halo 2, Jade Empire, Fable, and Shenmue II

Avatar image for zevvion
Zevvion

5965

Forum Posts

1240

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 6

User Lists: 2

#29  Edited By Zevvion

Ninja Gaiden Black and KOTOR. I appreciated Breakdown a lot, but it wasn't good.

Avatar image for damodar
damodar

2252

Forum Posts

1248

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

#30  Edited By damodar

Good to see Otogi getting some mentions, I adore it!

Another og xbox exclusive that I'm quite fond of that I never hear anybody talk about is Galleon. It's good, you guys :'(

@babychoochoo: I think Blinx gets treated unfairly. It was doing a bunch of cool stuff I'd never seen a game do before and I think a lot of people that jump on the bandwagon to mock it probably haven't even played it. If I had to guess, I'd say that maybe it was tarnished by the view that it was Microsoft trying to force their way into having their own mascot character for the system?

Anyway, the xbox was a cool system. It had a whole bunch of interesting little things on it and xbox live was really good right from the get-go. The PS2 was just too good!

Avatar image for monkeyking1969
monkeyking1969

9095

Forum Posts

1241

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 18

  1. Full Spectrum Warrior
  2. Dead or Alive 3
  3. Shenmue 2
  4. Playboy: The Mansion
  5. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
Avatar image for fredchuckdave
Fredchuckdave

10824

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

#32  Edited By Fredchuckdave

@bigsocrates: I like Halo, its a competent shooter. Halo 2 popularized online play but the campaign is widely hailed as the worst in the series and there's no real CoD 4 argument for Halo 2 as far as lasting impact goes. I had fun with Xbox but Metroid Prime is like the 5th best game ever and RE4 came out first on Gamecube. Metroid Prime Echoes is top 20-30, and Windwaker/Twilight Princess are up there as well. Thousand Year Door is the best Mario RPG short of XCOM Mario. I am very much not a Nintendo fanboy, I don't own a Wii, Wii U, or a Switch; and my primary reasons for wanting those consoles are Xenoblade and Bayonetta. But the Gamecube has maybe the second best cream of the crop exclusive lineup next to the SNES; Xbox has like the 20th best or so. Its real bad.

Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6146

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#33  Edited By bigsocrates

@fredchuckdave said:

@bigsocrates: I like Halo, its a competent shooter. Halo 2 popularized online play but the campaign is widely hailed as the worst in the series and there's no real CoD 4 argument for Halo 2 as far as lasting impact goes. I had fun with Xbox but Metroid Prime is like the 5th best game ever and RE4 came out first on Gamecube. Metroid Prime Echoes is top 20-30, and Windwaker/Twilight Princess are up there as well. Thousand Year Door is the best Mario RPG short of XCOM Mario. I am very much not a Nintendo fanboy, I don't own a Wii, Wii U, or a Switch; and my primary reasons for wanting those consoles are Xenoblade and Bayonetta. But the Gamecube has maybe the second best cream of the crop exclusive lineup next to the SNES; Xbox has like the 20th best or so. Its real bad.

This is completely subjective opinion and I totally disagree with your rankings. I don't even like Metroid Prime very much and the rest of those games don't do all that much for me either.

I wouldn't have much more to say, except that if you can't draw the line between Halo and CoD 4 I don't know what to tell you. Regenerating health, 2 weapon limit, even the whole control scheme are all things Halo popularized and CoD 4 relied on. That's not even crediting Halo for stuff like popularizing team deathmatch on console or all the other Halo stuff CoD 4 draws on.

You can argue that Metroid Prime is the better game than Halo, that's subjective, but Halo is VASTLY more influential.

Avatar image for topcat88
TopCat88

434

Forum Posts

16

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 4

#34  Edited By TopCat88

On a Thursday in March 2002, I finished school for the day, walked into town and picked up my pre-order for the original Xbox. I remember it was £414 ($538) and came with Halo: Combat Evolved, Unreal Championship, Amped and an extra controller. It was expensive ($733/£564 - Adjusted for inflation to 2016), but it was mine. I had just turned 14 and it cost all of my Christmas and birthday money plus what I had earned delivering newspapers. There was probably some extra financial help from my parents I can't remember. It remains the only console I have bought on day one. It felt great. I loved that box, despite what history remembers about it. It felt really heavy carrying it home. I remember this so well that it must have been incredibly exciting. As a 14 year old, I probably made some dubious game purchase choices, but here are the games I owned from the system in some sort of order.

1. Halo: Combat Evolved: The reason I bought the system. I went to a pre-launch event in Manchester, UK and there was barely anybody there. My friend and I walked through a dark tunnel into this awesome room with tonnes of game kiosks set up. I'd never seen a place like this. I didn't go there for Halo, I wasn't actually that interested in it. But the staff were very keen to show me it and I fell in love right away. It remains my favourite game series of all time. My biggest memory of that demo I played was the Needler and the neon pink bullets. Awesome. Halo 2 should be on this list, but I won't write about Halo twice. I pre-ordered the console after this. The LAN parties were my introduction to multiplayer where you couldn't screen peek. Back to back TV's 4-on-4. Happy times.

2. Fable: A phenominal experience. As you can see from this list I wasn't a big RPG guy, but I loved the Britishness of Fable. I fell for all of Molyneux's talk and didn't care that it didn't quite live up to it all. It was a joy to play and I revisit it frequently on Steam.

3. THPS 4: I loved all the THPS games and 2x would have been on this list if it wasn't North America only :(. I've still never played it. THPS 4 is here instead of '3' as it is the only game in the series I completely 100%ed, including all the gaps for every skater. I sank HOURS into this thing. I also won 2 magazine contests for longest manual and longest grind and had my picture in the next issue on both occasions. Go me!

4. Shenmue II: I fell in love with Shenmue. It wouldn't normally be my kind of game, but it was. The cherry blossom was beautiful.

5. 2002 Fifa World Cup: A strange choice, but this game came out the summer I bought the console. I remember being blown away by how good it looked.

6. Unreal Championship: My return to fast FPS games after playing a LOT of Quake II campaign on PS1.

7. Moto GP 2:This came free (maybe only a demo) with the Xbox Live CD. I played sooooo much of it. I still remember Mugello circuit and the sheer number of online players.

8. Far Cry: Instincts: This blew my mind graphically and I loved how lush the island felt.

9. NBA: Inside Drive 2002:I've grown out of my basketball phase, but I was really keen at this time. I got this game for free (along with Blood Wake) as a make good when MS reduced the price of the console so soon after launch. I don't know how well it was recieved at the time, but I liked it a lot.

10. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City:This is the game where I went from just messing around passing the controller to friends after getting busted/wasted to actually engaging with the missions and story. I loved it.

11. WWE Wrestlemania 21:WWE Raw and Raw 2 could be in this spot, but Wrestlemania 21 is the one I remember the most.

12. Jet Set Radio Future: This also came free with the Xbox Live CD and was a blast to play. It may also have only been a demo, but I remember the great blend of extreme sports and Japanese-ness.

13. Top Spin Tennis: I played a lot of this. I like all sports games and this was especially fun with friends. The fact I played tennis after school probably helped me like it. Mario Tennis is my favourite N64 game. shoot me!

14. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay: I remember the shiny graphics and exploring the prison. I like prison stories.

15. True Crime: Streets of LA:The world was soooo big. Say no more.

16. XIII: Looked really cool. I don't think I finished it, but the visuals have stuck with me.

17. Enter The Matrix:A really cool idea and I was obsessed with the Matrix at the time.

18. Amped: I traded this in fairly quickly and then regretted it and ended up re-buying it later.

19. Blood Wake: Great looking water and fun combat.

20. Tiger Woods PGA Tour: I can't remember which year I played, but I've always loved golf games. Currently, I'm playing The Golf Club.

21. Club Football: Manchester United: An interesting idea, (They released loads of versions of this game for different teams). I don't remember too much about what made it stand out from Fifa/Pro-Evo, but it has to go on this list because of how unique it was. Even though Pro Evo 4 was probably a better game.

22. The Simpsons: Road Rage: It was just fun to tool around in Springfield. That was enough for me at the time.

23. Whacked!: This was also an Xbox Live demo. I only mention it here because I feel it's largely been forgotten.

24. Steel Battalion: I didn't own this, but a friend did and I played a fair amount of it. Completely bonkers. It had an eject button on the controller and you had to flip up the plastic cover before you used it. WHAT!

25. BMX XXX: I was 14. It had boobs. I'm not going to apologise :P

These are basically all the games I played any substantial amount of. It was nice to reminisce for the last 30 minutes. I still focus on sports titles to this day, with a few FPS's I stick with.

Avatar image for fredchuckdave
Fredchuckdave

10824

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

@bigsocrates: It's not subjective if it's widely agreed upon. You can have fond memories of the Xbox all you like but that doesn't mean the vast majority of other people will. Personally I just sat there and played Morrowind on mine for like 500 hours one summer but its a much better game on PC and I'd be a moron not to admit that.

Halo 2 was the first popular online shooter on consoles, but guess what UT and Quake 3 are a fuckload better at doing the same thing if you want to credit being the first at something that was guaranteed to happen and Halo 2 has basically no progression system impact or really anything going for it. Unlike CoD 4 which is the standard blueprint for every online game ever, even non shooters. I don't even particularly like CoD 4, but that argument is bulletproof.

Halo is influential because of regenerating health, i.e. the absolute worst mechanic in modern shooters that the best current shooters don't even use. It's influential because of a regressive mechanic. Now if Halo was influential because everyone decided to have really good AI in their shooters (which is something that Halo did very well) then sure; but that's not what happened, the vast majority of shooters have shit AI.

Most of the best games ever are not particularly influential, sadly. Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile 2, even Super Metroid wasn't all that influential for like a decade, it is now but that's just because it's the default template for Indie games, not because people are able to make something even close to as good as it. There are a whole bunch of other examples. Super Mario World and Mario 3 had less impact than the original Mario despite being vastly superior games. Final Fantasy 4/6 are from a virtually non existent genre now. A Link to the Past has had no triple A game even try to emulate it. Starcraft is the best RTS by far but Warcraft 3 is the one that's influential. The aforementioned Quake and UT are gone despite being easily the best multiplayer shooter experiences you could ever have.

Avatar image for topcat88
TopCat88

434

Forum Posts

16

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 4

#36  Edited By TopCat88

@fredchuckdave said:

@bigsocrates: Halo 2 has basically no progression system impact or really anything going for it. Unlike CoD 4 which is the standard blueprint for every online game ever, even non shooters. I don't even particularly like CoD 4, but that argument is bulletproof.

I don't disagree that CoD has the stronger legacy in terms of influencing future multiplayer shooter standards. However, I really dislike that way of handling balance. I never really played a CoD because of this and that almost certainly makes be incredibly biased and stuck in my ways. I don't, and never really did, spend a lot of time playing games, especially around their launch. This means that I feel I will be left behind as everybody else will have unlocked all the best stuff and I'll be stuck with basic loadouts.

I massively prefer the Halo style of a level playing field, perfectly balanced guns, the same for everybody. I adored Halo 3 and was left cold by Halo 4 and (less so) 5 because I feel it went chasing CoD and lost its identity. Destiny, whilst not as evenly balanced due to personal loadouts, does it better I think. You can play 1,000 hours of PvP and I can play 1,000 hours of PvE. Yet, when we play PvP together, your advantage comes from knowing the maps and multiplayer practice, not because you have unlocked some awesome perks I don't have yet.

As I say, I didn't really ever play CoD (and Titanfall 2 multiplayer for the same reasons) so I may be wide of the mark with this.

Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6146

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@fredchuckdave: You have very strong opinions on games (fine) which you then claim are widely shared and objectively true (not the case.) The idea that Metroid Prime is a better game than Halo is NOT widely shared and can be seen, in part, by the fact that Metroid Prime has been a marginally successful series while Halo has been extremely popular for 15 years (albeit faded somewhat from its heights at this point.)

The thing that Halo did wonderfully that was most influential is not the regenerating health, or the two weapon limit, or even the great online, it was the control scheme, which literally transformed the way console shooters controlled and opened up the genre on console in a whole new way. Metroid Prime does not control well, which is one of the reasons it is not the superior game.

You can claim that these controls were "inevitable" but one game got it very right and the other got it wrong enough that when it was re-released on Wii they added pointer controls and most people I know think that's the better way to play.

This argument is both fruitless and derailing this thread so I'm done with it, but it really irritates me when people insist their completely subjective opinions are the carved truth of the ages. You have some extremely particular list of the "best games ever" you've constructed in your head, and that's fine, but you cannot expect others to just play by the rules you're making up.

Avatar image for topcat88
TopCat88

434

Forum Posts

16

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 4

#39  Edited By TopCat88

@otakugamer: RE: Ghost Recon. I had it on Xbox, my friend had it on PS2. I really struggled with it on Xbox and found it really hard/borderline inaccessable. However, on PS2 it seemed far easier. I could never figure it out. I don't think it was as simple as accidentally choosing different difficulty levels. Does anybody know what this could be? Or is my memory/experience completetly messed up? The latter is likely.

Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6146

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@topcat88: I don't know if this is the case for Ghost Recon, but for a lot of games the Xbox version was significantly different from the PS2 version because of Xbox's power advantage and extra RAM. I think that may have been the case here because PS2's metacritic is almost 15 points lower than Xbox's. It's possible then that the PS2 version had shorter levels or less complex AI (both common compromises for that system in those days.)

Sorry I don't have more specifics and don't know whether it's the case here, but it's quite possible there were significant differences that made one version easier than the other.

Avatar image for frustratedlnc
frustratedlnc

221

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I bought an Xbox for Ninja Gaiden, which is high up on the relatively short list of games I bought for the console. Halo 2 ended up being my favorite multiplayer experience of all time. Burnout III is my favorite racing game of all time, and I look back on Ninja Gaiden as one of the best action games ever. I loved Jade Empire and enjoyed Fable quite a bit, but I either didn't play or didn't like the rest of the original Xbox library.

Avatar image for topcat88
TopCat88

434

Forum Posts

16

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 4

@bigsocrates: @otakugamer:

Thanks guys. The AI complexity may well be it. Also, something such as more detail in bushes/trees could have made it harder to see enemies in the Xbox version. I know this can be a problem in Halo Anniversary/Master Chief Collection with the new visuals. You can think you're hiding behind a bush that wasn't so big in the original graphics and the AI sees your arse sticking out.

Avatar image for ajamafalous
ajamafalous

13992

Forum Posts

905

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 9

Fable is easily my favorite

Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6146

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#46  Edited By bigsocrates
Avatar image for shyblade
Shyblade

9

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@bartok: Kingdom Under Fire Crusaders

Avatar image for oculin
Oculin

10

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Men of Valor is really weird on the original Xbox. It's like a Wii shooter without the pointer controllers.

Unfortunately I haven't played a ton on the Xbox in awhile minus SEGA stuff, which is largely good. I have a soft spot for Full Spectrum Warrior (which is multi-plat), but it's been so long that I don't know if it has held up.

Avatar image for ginormous76
Ginormous76

509

Forum Posts

114

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 11

Xtreme Beach Volleyball. It was actually a good, sand volleyball game. There aren't many of those, IMO.